Written in Sand (not stone)
by Phantom Feline
Summary: Harry's life after the War wasn't anything like what he'd wanted as a teenager, but it was good. Until he started hearing voices in his head that he really shouldn't understand, that talked about Seals, and Hell, and the literal End of the World. What choice did he have but to help? First step; find the brothers called Winchester. Atypical ABO 'verse. Pre-slash, A/A pairing.
1. Prologue

The Author's Excuse for Writing This:

I have to start off by saying that generally, I don't like A/B/O fics. And yet here I am writing one. You could call this a challenge, if you will; part to see if I could, and part me throwing my hands up saying "Well, you're already doing _that_ cliché, you may as well do another!". The rest of me just wants to subvert all the stereotypical bleh I am _so very tired_ of finding when I'm looking for good, plotty, character-develop-y fics to read. This is my **DISCLAIMER**. This is me trying to make theoretical sense of A/B/O, how to make people into people, and also fit Harry Potter and Supernatural into the same 'verse and still make some amount of sense. There will plot, and I seriously doubt we'll see any hint of sex between my endgame pairing for quite a long time.

The endgame is Sam Winchester and Harry Potter. They are both Alphas. I have taken a challenge to try and make it work. Let's see how I do.

And now, the Prologue.

/-/-/

In many millions of parallel worlds, Harry Potter was nothing more than the main character in an extremely popular book series.

In a few million less, he was a wizard prophesized to save his world—but he died too early, and Voldemort prevailed.

In a hundred thousand or so, he defeated Voldemort and went on to live a long, full life. He married his first love and named his three children after the respected dead and his dear friends.

In a few thousand, he was murdered shortly after the Dark Lord was vanquished.

In a couple hundred worlds, he kept the Deathly Hallows and became the Master of Death. In those, everything from eternal rebirths to becoming the entity of Death Itself occurred.

And in a handful of those remaining worlds…something else happened.

/-/-/

Voldemort fell, ashes to the wind, and the Elder Wand sat a cold comfort in Harry's palm as he watched his archenemy crumble. The Death Stick remained in his nerveless fingers like it had a will of its own, bitter thorns hooked into his skin, and Harry thought back to King's Cross and knew above all else—

"I don't want this," he rasped from a tired, ruined throat, shadowed green eyes on the wand that almost ended the Wizarding World. With a movement that felt more like a test of resolve, he made skinned, soot-stained fingers unclench from the knobby wood. It clattered hollowly to the cracked cobblestones, rolled towards him. "Go where no one will ever use you again." It didn't feel strange to talk to a wand like it could understand; it seemed to be waiting, and Harry was so _tired_. "Go back to Death, I don't want you."

Harry blinked, and the wand was gone, a cold pressure he hadn't even noticed disappearing from his shoulders with it. He fell; sat there with his head cradled in his hands and the first relieved cheers ringing in his ears, and felt like he might've just escaped a fate worse than death.

/-/-/

Ten years was an ample amount of time for things to change, even in the Wizarding World where things so easily stayed the same, perpetually. Even that inflexible fact was changing; all it had taken was Voldemort's blight almost destroying everything.

Most of the changes, though, started with the near-unanimous decision for every Hogwarts student to return to retake the year the Dark Lord had reigned over the school.

Harry arrived with the rest of the 'Eighth Year' on September first to a school that was still being repaired, full of scars that rubbed them all the wrong way, new memories of death in a place that was supposed to evoke good nostalgia. Nearly half the Professors were unfamiliar faces, temporary, placeholders for those who were still recovering (and hopefully not dying). Almost immediately there were fights in the halls –and not just between old factions, but anyone whose stress exploded into rage and caught those nearby in the crosshairs– that resulted in a dozen students in the Hospital Wing in the first week, and a handful expelled by Halloween.

What it all came down to was this: An entire generation of children had lived through war and terror, and no one knew what to do to help. Magical children were notoriously finicky, worse than exotic animals, and this might well have ruined them.

But then…equilibrium started to establish itself, much to the confused perturbation of the Professors. What happened certainly wasn't anything the fixed older generations would have chosen, if they had come up with any solution at all.

The truth of it was, the entire reshaping of a culture came from the most absurd of sources. It all started when Harry and Ginny got back together and discovered that they just didn't _fit_ anymore, sharp edges grating where they hadn't before, tender new scars always inadvertently prodded at just the wrong moment. Together, they almost ruined anything they could've had…until Luna joined them. Luna, just as serene and mellow but slightly less eccentric now. Luna, an omega who Ginny –a beta like every other Weasley in eight generations– had helped through her heat when she presented the summer before her fourth year. Harry, an alpha who'd thought he'd be beta right up until he presented late –midwinter, halfway through seventeen, on the run and living out of a tent with a horcrux around his neck; rut had been _horrible_ , borderline traumatizing– could only look between them and give his slightly helpless consent.

They were messed up teenagers with more issues than anyone knew what to do with, but they were good together, good _for_ each other. Mostly they needed the intimacy more than the sex, the knowledge they had people they could trust and could go to for any reason, at any time. The sex certainly didn't hurt, though.

And that was how the changing of the Wizarding World started: Three teenagers seeking sex and safety.

Somehow, a night of giving Luna some comfort after yet another recurring nightmare from Malfoy Manor led to them looking into empathetic bonds, which _then_ led them to the old pagan rites witches and wizards used before wands gained popularity…

(Which later led to the three of them tangled into a messy triangle with multiple fingers buried in each of their partners, working towards orgasm for a modified rite to bind them all together, at least for a while, while they _needed_ it. By the end of the night, Harry was forced to concede that he definitely wasn't the typical alpha. The girls didn't seem to mind, though; Ginny in particular took great pleasure in using Luna's toys on him, later.)

There was a lot _more_ to the old magic; spells worked through alternate mediums, prayers and offerings to old gods like Loki and Athena and Gaia, and to Harry it was like discovering he was a wizard all over again. He hadn't felt as comfortable with a wand in his hand since the Final Battle, even though he still carried his miraculously repaired holly and phoenix feather one with him everywhere, so this magic appealed to him greatly. He couldn't understand how it had been so thoroughly and universally forgotten. His girls got caught up in his excitement and wonder, and soon it became common for them to practice whenever they could.

At about the same time the three of them could hold hands and create a snowstorm the size of the Great Hall, the other students were catching on, and it seemed that overnight they were all in on it. While the potential for chaos was there, it never happened on a large enough scale to matter. The bottom line of the old magic was that the big things –the catastrophic, world shattering spells– required that they all work together.

Not a single one of their traumatized generation who wanted destruction like that could stand to build the connections with another person long enough to do it.

So began the conversion of an entire generation, much to the distaste of Professors who suddenly had to convince their students that they _needed their wands_ to do the coursework.

By the time they graduated, becoming an Auror and working for the Ministry was about the _last_ thing Harry wanted to do. He was finished school. His partners were finished school, had worked hard to graduate with him, in essence working through two years in one. They had survived, and as a group decided that they wanted _out_ for a while; even with only a year together under their belt they knew it wouldn't last forever (so was the nature of the bond they'd created). They would enjoy what they had while it lasted, and none of them wanted anywhere near the Ministry until every bit of Voldemort's blight was gone from it—a work still in progress.

It was Ginny who left first, after two years away from the worst of the prying eyes in a comfortable flat in Muggle London. It was a great two years spent learning about the nonmagical world, like a honeymoon, where every other weekend they danced to '70s music and were the talk of their neighbors after a few too many times of forgetting to silence the flat. The beta wanted to start on the next stage of her life, try for a career in professional quidditch and eventually find a mate and have a family. Harry and Luna saw her off fondly, with sad smiles but no tears; the empathetic bond they'd created out of _need_ had failed –no longer necessary– some time ago, so the separation was no surprise.

With Ginny gone, the sex stopped as well –Luna was more attracted to the female form, and Harry found he craved more passion in a lover than the blonde could provide alone– but the intimacy remained. Sharing a bed kept the worst of the nightmares at bay, though it took them months to get used to one less body tangled in the sheets.

Eventually Luna found her calling as a teacher when the much-reformed Ministry provided the funds to build early introduction schools, where Muggleborns were identified by age five and their parents given the opportunity to know of the world hidden from them, well before their Hogwarts letter would come. It was so successful from the start that by the following year even the most insular purebloods were enrolling their children to be taught alongside muggleborns and halfbloods. Luna was a great part of that. She brought the _wonder_ back to magic, bringing classes of six year olds to focus, to be happy and hold hands and make gardens grow from bare cement.

The omega was given a plaque in commemoration, and moved from their flat to a home alongside the main school so that she could always be available to anyone who needed her.

With both his girls gone, Harry moved back to Grimmauld Place and set out to make it a safe and properly livable home. In between odd jobs in the Muggle world –he worked in a pub for a few weeks, a library for a few months, a janitor in between, a landscaper, after; he relished in the ability to be who he wanted, to _choose_ what he would do– he cleaned and sorted out the old Black House, painting and gutting and getting insanely good at breaking dark curses as he came across the objects (the most use his wand got, anymore).

Ron and Hermione were frequent visitors and occasional helpers, and Harry had every holiday over at the Burrow with the Weasleys (and Luna, when she could spare the time), and his life wasn't what he'd expected, but it was _good_.

That good fortune carried him right until just after New Year's of 2004, when he uncovered a hand mirror in a box in the attic; a simple spell revealed that it was enchanted –not cursed –, so he didn't think anything of looking at it.

Ron told him what happened, later, drawn and dark-eyed, Hermione crying too hard in relief to find her voice.

They found him three days after he looked at the mirror, when his hand on the family clock clicked over to 'Mortal Peril', collapsed on the floor with broken glass all around.

His oldest friends took him in when he couldn't stand St. Mungo's anymore; when he was sure the Mind Healers couldn't do anything about the chronic nightmares he could never remember; when no one could tell him why he woke knowing a new language, one he tended to speak unknowingly whenever tired or freshly roused; when nothing came to light on how or why a scrying mirror had sent him into a coma in the first place.

Harry Potter woke from a sixteen month coma not knowing exactly what had changed, just that something had and it would never go away.

Ron and Hermione insisted he stay with them while he recovered, even when Rose was born and they barely had energy for her, let alone their twenty-five year old friend who sometimes wandered off to stare unseeingly at the stars for hours on end, and more often than not woke the household with tortured screams in the dead of night. He proved to be useless as a babysitter for most of the time he stayed with them, useless for most everything except gardening because he would get so distracted by a thought that the rest of the world seemed to disappear.

The only blessing during that time –when he was legitimately _out of his mind_ – was when the notoriously erratic alpha rut came, he didn't even notice. Somehow, in complete defiance of biology, his rut came and he didn't do a _damn thing_. Though Hermione locked him in the guest bedroom when she noticed his changed scent, and wouldn't let him out until it ended. Harry didn't blame her, as normally the rut made him just as quick to snap as any other alpha, and she _did_ have a baby in the house.

Somewhere in that time his Invisibility Cloak reappeared, the first time he'd seen it since he sent the Elder Wand away; its reappearance was almost more baffling than its new behavior. Despite constantly being draped over his shoulders (no matter how many times he removed it), it never turned him invisible. It was also completely invisible to everyone else, and even _he_ couldn't see its reflection the few times he managed to look in a mirror. Harry decided not to mention it to anyone else, just in case they thought he was hallucinating it and decided St. Mungo's was the best option.

By the time Hermione was pregnant with her second child, Harry figured he was as recovered as he was going to get. He still woke shivering and sweating from his fleeting nightmares, but rarely screamed, and if he concentrated he could usually keep himself from slipping into the guttural (powerful) language when he was tired. He didn't even space out in the middle of conversations anymore.

Ginny and Luna continued to visit him whenever they could, but both were very busy and just didn't offer the same comfort they once had. They had moved on; their time was long in the past. It left Harry restless.

It was Ron who suggested that he travel, and it turned out to be just what he needed. Camping was a lot more enjoyable this time, when he _wasn't_ being hunted by Snatchers, and time didn't mean as much in the middle of the wilderness. Harry could watch the stars turn all night, watch the bees go about pollinating flowers until he could see the pattern, be so still that a blessing of unicorns _found him_ and _slept around him_. It was amazing.

The first time he checked in with his friends after he started backpacking through the wilderness of Europe, they were nearly hysterical. Somehow, owls couldn't find him anymore and tracking spells didn't work either—not even the old way, with blood and herbs. Harry privately suspected it had something to do with the invisible, intangible Cloak, but didn't say anything. Instead, he dug up one of the DA's old communication Galleons for short check-ins, and bought a laptop to send e-mails whenever he came close enough to civilization to make use of the internet.

He continued to wander, and interesting things happened.

In Scandinavia he found a coven of pagan omega wizards who, in return for him talking a nest of ashwinders into protecting their shrine to Loki, performed a ritual that healed a little of the lasting damage from his childhood. Afterward, he grew an entire inch taller, his eyesight improved enough that he only needed his glasses to read and –strangely– his hair acquired a bit of a wave that made it curl around his ears and nape.

In midwinter Harry spent two weeks in a no-name village in Russia having the entirety of his back tattooed by a werewolf squib, his old crone of a housemate watching him work and who wouldn't stop smirking the entire time. The end result was an incredibly detailed pair of wings, pearl gray with bands of pale gold, every feather shot through and limned with molten orange and fiery pink—the same color the clouds turned every morning when they watched the sun rise. They didn't understand a word the other spoke, and the werewolf refused to be paid; he crossed himself and bowed his head when Harry left.

A blessing of unicorns followed him through Germany's Black Forest for eleven days in early spring, despite the fact that a unicorn hadn't been seen there for more than a century. He woke every morning those eleven days with a foal against his chest and a soft muzzle in his hair, despite that he was neither a maiden nor a virgin.

Harry came back to his friends the first week of May, 2007, suffering from a looming sense of unease that wouldn't quit. Only when he returned to the UK did he learn that there might've been more to it than his damage acting up; Wizarding Ministries all around the world were warning their citizens against travel to North America, specifically the United States. Something terrible had happened over there, an outpouring of malicious energy, and then hours later every wizard in the United States was dead from unknown causes.

That strange, ominous event spurred Harry into returning to Grimmauld, back to some of the old papers he'd found hidden away in Sirius' bedroom. Before his coma –when he was still mostly unwary of the Black House– Harry discovered a cache of mission reports from the first war against Voldemort; more than once Sirius had been sent to the United States to track down possible Death Eater activity, though it had almost always been for nothing, strictly precautionary. There was just something about the States that twisted up wand magic badly enough that even Voldemort stayed away. It was probably the same thing that drew the truly monstrous creatures there, the ones that even the Dark Lord realized he couldn't gain the loyalty of.

Sirius, being the kind of man he was –just as reckless at twenty-two as at sixteen– went back as many times he could justify, and a few he couldn't, to see as much of that strangeness as he could. Werewolves that didn't turn into wolves and ate human hearts; ghosts that went mad and kept none of their humanity; vampires with extra teeth instead of fangs, and that didn't blister in the sun. Sometimes, creatures like that were heard of elsewhere, but never more than in the States.

Not much came of Sirius' many trips besides acknowledgement that the less magic you used, the safer you would be. Enchantments as simple as self-mending clothing mutated with horrible consistency into clothes that turned carnivorous. The only reliable magic he had used was component magic, and as that as before the Wizarding World's rebirth, Sirius hadn't known enough to do more than track or water-scry. Eventually, after three times in as many missions of being nearly killed by human-like creatures he couldn't identify, Sirius stopped requesting to be sent away from the home front, and the notes ended.

So of course Harry was interested –not even the coma, and all that changed because of it, could kill his sense of adventure–, but then Hugo was born and Ron and Hermione wanted him to stay close for a while. Rosie was almost three, and took after her mother very much; she liked to sit with him in the garden when he told her about the things he saw when he was away. She called him Uncle Harry, and loved her little brother very much, and was already reading her books without help, and Harry was just as proud of her as her parents.

That was his family. Nothing like what he had imagined as a teenager, but who could've predicted that? Who could ever have known that he would turn into a slightly unbalanced wandering spirit? That half the time he was living out of the home of his _married friends_ and their _children_ , and the other half he was roughing it in the wilderness? That was his life, and Harry _liked it_.

He probably would've continued on like that, except one day a sound like thunder and bells rang through his head, and then—

 _ **Dean Winchester is saved!**_

/-/-/

(If you're curious, I imagine Harry/Ginny/Luna's song to be King Harvest's 'Dancing in the Moonlight'. Worth a listen.)


	2. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Well, that was a pretty nice response, thanks guys. Hope you continue to enjoy.

/-/-/

Harry frowned down at the screen of his laptop, more at the nearly unintelligible whispers in his head than the results the search engine had spat out (though that, too, was reason enough to frown). 'Dean and Samuel Winchester'. They had quite the reputation. He still wasn't sure if it was better or worse that the voices in his head seemed to be giving him legitimately real information.

His tired brain turned that over and poked at it, and Harry decided—worse. It was worse. Much, much worse. It would've been preferable if he'd just been hallucinating in inexplicably biblical psychosis, because now there was _this_. If what he had been hearing was the truth, it meant that this really could be the end of the world. That angels and demons and the Devil were all real, and they were all hurtling headlong into the Apocalypse, one Seal at a time. Thinking about it too long made him feel like he'd swallowed a lead ball, heavy and anxious.

Harry shivered and powered down his laptop, sliding it into his bag and then shouldering it as he stood. His back cracked unpleasantly when he stretched, the consequence of yet another sleepless night in a chair he knew better than to sit in without an extra pillow or three. The early morning light peeked through the gauzy curtains, staining the cream wallpaper of the guest room – _his_ room– a mellow peach, a familiar sight these past years of uneasy, sleepless nights. Harry took it in fondly. He had the feeling it would probably be the last time he got to see it for quite some time.

Hermione was already in the kitchen despite the early hour, Hugo fussing against the shoulder of her kneazel-patterned dressing robe while she hummed and shushed him. She smiled warmly when she noticed Harry standing in the doorway; when he came over to run gentle fingers through the baby's fine ginger hair, her expression grew into something genuinely happy. After a moment Hugo cooed wetly and tucked his head into the soft collar of his mother's robe, fast asleep.

"You should've been an omega," Hermione teased, eyes bright, and only just kept from yelping when Harry retaliated by leaning in and rubbing his cheek and neck against her frizzy head, and unmistakably territorial alpha scent-marking gesture. It was something that would've gotten him into deep trouble if Ron didn't know he considered Hermione as nothing more than a sister. "Ack! You're such a brat, Harry!" He snapped his teeth playfully, smiling, and then yawning before he could manage stifle it; Hermione's expression softened and she went about preparing tea, the two of them content in the early morning quiet.

"Leaving again already?" When Harry turned away from the kitchen window it was to Hermione's big brown eyes –resigned but fond– lingering on the backpack slung over his shoulder. "You don't look like you slept very well last night. Are you sure you don't want to stay? Rose could use help sorting her candy."

Harry hummed and turned back to the window—it was easier to get away with lying when Hermione couldn't see his face. "Maybe I'll go to Ireland this time, bring the kids back something nice."

His eyes unconsciously tracked a russet fox darting across the yard, sleep-deprived mind turning over the clamor that'd woken him in the early hours of the morning; voices – _angels?_ – like bees and feedback singing about the breaking of a Seal, the rising of the demon called Samhain, and then its subsequent banishment back to Hell by the 'abomination' Samuel Winchester and his demon-given powers.

He may as well have not slept at all.

But there was absolutely no way that he was letting his friend know that he was hearing these things – _especially_ if it turned out to be real–, or that he would be on his way to the United States before the day's end. "Or Scotland again, maybe. Somewhere green."

The beta sighed and came up beside him, leaning close enough that he could feel the heat Hugo was putting off, just feverish enough to make the boy miserable. "You'll come home for Christmas." It wasn't much of a question, but there was a very slight rise at the end that made Harry murmur a quiet "I'll try." He meant it, too, but also knew that there was no chance in hell that he would come back home if he thought trouble would follow.

"Tell Ron and Rosie I said 'bye'." Hermione's hair brushed the side of his face when she nodded and agreed with a subdued "I will." He could tell she suspected something, but she didn't ask things like 'what's wrong?' as much, after so many answers of 'I don't know' from the nightmares.

His first stop was Grimmauld Place to swap for a different backpack. Normally he carried a few enchanted items to make his trips more comfortable –waterproof bag, heated clothing, an ever-sharp knife, space-expanded pouches– but it would all have to be left behind unless he wanted the magic in them turning against him. He packed light; two changes of clothes, his laptop, a small book he thought would be helpful, his muggle passport and a stash of American dollars Sirius had hidden away with the Order reports. As far as he knew, money didn't go bad.

Into the maybe-there Invisibility Cloak, Harry hid away his wand and a silver plated pocket knife. (Trying to figure out how he was hiding solid objects within the intangible material gave him a headache thinking about, so he generally tried not to.)

The Galleon –as heavily enchanted as it was– stayed behind, left in plain sight on the kitchen table. Ron would probably find it first; his friends would be pissed that he left it behind, but it didn't stop Harry. It also didn't make him leave an explanation with it, just in case they came by the house before he left the country. Harry didn't want a confrontation.

Within an hour he'd boarded a plane, and then –stuck in a pressurized capsule with too many other people– he didn't have any other choice but to think. And just like they'd done since that first clear, blaring scream in September, his thoughts invariably turned to the angels. The voices in his head, however muffled they usually were. Harry wasn't a Seer – _Ron_ had more skill in Divination than he did– but still the voices in his head seemed to speak of real people, from what he could dig up on the internet. He didn't know what else to believe, or to _doubt_.

Dean and Samuel Winchester. The angels said that one was a Righteous Man who sold his soul to bring his brother back to life, and had been raised from the fires of Hell to do Heaven's work. According to them, the other was an Abomination, infected with demon blood since he was an infant, given unholy power and an offense to Heaven. The internet confirmed that two such brothers did exist, but told a tale that, alone, would've made Harry hesitate to seek them out. Both confirmed dead at least once, wanted by law enforcement with charges from grave desecration to murder. There was something more going on there, and if the voices in his head were indeed real… It meant that those brothers sought out and killed the dangerous creatures that not even wizards wanted to tangle with.

And Harry was on his way to _that_ country, full of _those_ creatures, to track down _those_ brothers and get himself involved with this whole Apocalyptic mess. Because the longer it went on, the more he heard the angels –(however much he got the feeling he _really wasn't_ supposed to be hearing them)–, the less he doubted the reality of it all. He wasn't going to just sit aside and do nothing to help prevent the damn _end of the world_!

By the time the plane touched down in Maryland's BWI airport, Harry was nearly desperate to be off and away from the masses. It had slipped his mind just how strangely the near-universal use of hormone suppressants in the muggle world could affect omega heats—and someone on the plane had been in pre-heat. In the Wizarding World, heats came in spring and early summer with very few exceptions, scents and the worst symptoms managed by spells that'd been around for hundreds of years and that every witch and wizard was obligated to learn at age eleven. Otherwise, heats weren't suppressed, and ruts were managed almost the same way. Muggle suppressants were much more recent in comparison, still improving, and more likely to fail their purpose. One of the reasons for many pureblood's scorn of the muggle world came from the fact that, in their effort to alleviate the worst of their biology's functions, they had completely eliminated a distinct heat season.

Harry needed to get _out of there_ because he didn't take the muggle hormone pills, and the _last thing_ he needed right now was to go into rut because of some omega's heat.

With his single bag, Harry was able to slip through the crowds quickly, and then it was only a matter of flagging down a shuttle bus to take him to one of the many nearby hotels. Lack of sleep was hitting him hard by then, blurring the world around the edges and completely erasing his memory of the trip from airport to hotel. He was just barely conscious enough to book a single and get to the room before he dropped and promptly passed out.

/-/

Harry awoke disoriented, confused by the light level in the hotel room. It took him ten minutes staring at the clock, face still half-buried in a pillow, to realize that, no, he hadn't woken up thirty minutes _before he fell asleep_ , he'd just managed to sleep for a solid twenty-three hours. He dragged himself free of the tangled nest of sheets, but didn't actually leave the bed as he closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the part of his brain that always hummed, and sometimes even loud enough that he could make out the voices clearly enough to understand. It was always easiest to hear them just after sleep.

There was a very good reason that Harry didn't make it a habit of _trying_ to listen in, thought.

There was only one voice. One voice that's screaming nearly rivaled the volume of the chorus that broke through him that first day. Harry squeezed his hands over his ears on reflex, hard enough to hurt, trying to keep out the agonized mantra that repeated over and over: " _I am sorry, forgive me, forgive me, I am so sorry my friend, please—_." It took Harry a long time to shut the voice out again, and by then –not for the first time– he was muttering under his breath in that old language: " _Stop, please, I forgive you, I forgive you, you are absolved; please stop_."

There were some worrisome connotations to that, but they took a backseat to the _freaking Apocalypse_ , so Harry didn't think about it, no matter how much it felt like a literal knife to the heart to hear that _voice_.

Harry shuffled out of bed and into the shower, at last taking note of the sort of hotel he'd checked into during his almost-sleepwalk. The lack of disquieting stains, plus the neutral beige and tan decor said it was probably more than he should've spent taking into account the very limited amount of money he had. At least the bathroom had complementary toiletries, considering it had completely slipped his mind to pack any—he would definitely be taking them with him.

As he brushed his teeth, he made a list in his head. At the very top of it was finding one of the increasingly common muggle 'New Age' shops to get the herbs he would need for a spell to track the Winchester brothers down. Second was to buy the rest of the essentials he had either forgotten in his split-second bolt to ground zero or deemed too much trouble to get through customs. (There had been one time he'd gone the muggle way from Britain to Germany with a bundle of meadowsweet root for his then-frequent headaches and been detained, and _that_ wasn't something he was in a rush to repeat.) Third, as he spit and wiped mint foam from his lips, was to consult the '60s traveler's guide stuffed in his bag to see if shaving spells were safe, or he'd have to buy a razor before the stubble just darkening his chin grew into anything more.

He'd been lucky enough to check into a hotel with a diner next door—one that offered free wifi. It took a few minutes to convince his laptop that it wanted to talk to the American system, but routinely traveling internationally had given him the proper equipment for the job. By the time Harry was sipping the too-acidic coffee and poking at a pile of scrambled eggs he had an address and a promise from the pretty omega that took his order that she would call a cab for him, ("No problem, honey,").

He almost considered sending Hermione an email –because Ron and computers still didn't mix well– while he checked for local thrift and super-stores, but decided against it almost as quickly. They probably hadn't even realized he didn't have his Galleon, yet. The niggling guilt had him adding another point to his list, all the same: Buy a disposable cell phone, and enough minutes to cover the inevitable rant when everyone realized where he'd gone.

Just as long as they didn't try something stupid like chasing after him, Harry would happily deal with any vitriol they had to spit his way. It was just his luck that all his friends covered their worry with anger or tears nowadays.

Breakfast eaten and waitress charmed with a sweet smile that'd gotten Harry out of _so much worse_ that the jam packets he'd swiped from the table, he paid his bill and went to the cab waiting outside. He had a lot to do today, and couldn't shake the anxious _nownownow_ feeling that'd sat heavy in his gut since he hit solid earth.

Harry needed to find the Winchesters. They could tell him, one way or another, if this was real. (And if it was, then maybe they could tell him what to _do_.)

The closest New Age shop happened to be one called 'The Turning Wheel'. He eyed the unfamiliar symbols painted on the windows with dubious amusement –since he'd started practicing the pagan side of magic, he had become much more familiar with the god and element symbols, but didn't consider himself an expert of symbology by a long shot– and entered anyway, nose immediately filled with the overwhelmingly sweet and spicy scent of smoke incense. The plump young woman behind the glass counter smiled at him absently, already helping a woman and her daughter pick through a tray of wearable crystals. Past the cloth-draped tables covered in cheap arcane knickknacks, candles and semiprecious stones Harry could see the dried herbs packed into neat little plastic bags.

Right beside the wall of herbs was a display of bowls, and Harry stopped, fingers running restlessly over what felt like solid brass for a moment before he reluctantly decided against it. Besides being _bloody expensive_ it would take up too much space, and he didn't actually _need_ it. He could mix the spell in a damn paper cup if he needed to –and was willing to part with a little bit of blood–, but he did grab a few dram bottles with screw-on tops.

Everything he needed was _right there_. Thank magic for muggles, Harry though, amused at the irony. Ginko, damiana leaf, mugwort…a little expensive, but Harry knew his herbs better now, and they all had uses beyond the hunting/scrying spell he needed them for immediately. For that reason he grabbed some baggies of willow bark and spearmint leaf; everyone knew they could offer mild relief from fever, headache and upset stomach, but with a little boost of magic? If done right it was almost as good as the more modern, foul tasting wizard potions.

The mother and daughter were still at the counter, but when Harry approached they moved aside with identical shy smiles, giving him the space to lay out his purchases. He tuned out their chatter about crystal resonances more easily than he could the way their suppressant-laced scents drew his attention, unused to it after his long hiatus from the majority of the world. The clerk was watching him with some intensity as she jotted down his selection on a clipboard beside the register.

"Interesting bunch here," she said, husky voice just barely louder than the flute accompaniment drifting softly from hidden speakers. "Planning something?" She picked up the bag of finely shredded damiana, meeting Harry's eyes with an eyebrow cocked and a smile twisting her plum painted lips at one side. Her face clearly broadcasted her thoughts; 'I know you're up to something~'

Called for or not, all of Harry's instincts immediately screamed DEFLECT! All those herbs had alternate, more common uses than his spell; damiana was a common aphrodisiac, so—

"Just a bit of fun," Harry replied, not having to fake embarrassment as he ducked his head to hide behind his fringe. He wasn't oblivious; Harry knew he looked so much younger than his twenty-eight years like this, not nearly as forward as his alpha status insisted he could be. He was good at playing it up, even if it still rubbed him wrong sometimes. "It's just not worth the trouble to get all the herbs through customs–" Harry peeked at the beta thought his hair, eyes bright like he was letting her in on a secret, "– and no one ever believes me when I say they're just for tea."

The woman laughed, charmed, and finished ringing him up. Harry was glad he only had cash and not a card—something with his _name_. He felt her eyes on his back all the way out the door, lingering until he got back into the waiting cab.

/-/-/

Harry tried to never show just how on-guard he became around large crowds of people –or really, people at all; even small groups in close quarters got to him–, and he'd gotten pretty good at it from lifelong practice, but it was hard in the cities. Give him an attack by a rabid bear anytime (it'd happened once), but people? People were _cruel_ , and much more of a threat than anything he'd ever encountered in the woods.

It only put him so much more on edge because he really had to _try_ to keep up the Wizarding World's Secrecy Pact, even if there was no one to enforce it in the United States. Defending himself was so much harder when he really _shouldn't_ draw his wand.

It paid to stay wary, though, and it only took him an hour in Washington DC to decide it would be best to get everything he needed done before darkness fell. He would've liked to avoid the capital altogether, except logic said it would be easier to get a bus ticket to anywhere from the nation's brain, and he wouldn't know how far he'd have to go until he got time to put the spell together. The city was dangerous, thought. The dregs of society clung in dark alleys and vacant buildings like flotsam, hungry eyes watching with all the desperation of starving wolves, and twice the danger.

Harry couldn't shake the feeling of being followed as he went from thrift store to Goodwill, picking up things like a sleeping bag and extra clothes. By the time he'd hit a convenience story for trail mix, water, and a cell phone with enough minutes to last in an emergency, Harry was _sure_ that there was someone on his tail.

The sun was setting and he hadn't found a room for the night, yet, but now he was too paranoid to stop at any of the cheap ones he passed. He didn't trust the locks. He couldn't afford one of the more expensive hotels, not in the _capital_ , because this money had to _last_ , and now Harry was stuck. He trusted his instincts to know when to keep going, but he wanted to stop; the sooner he got a room, the sooner he could do his spell, the sooner he could be on his way to the Winchesters…

His eyes scanned his surroundings again, and Harry only had a second to feel the frisson of unease at discovering the length of the block empty before he went flying off his feet and into the alley he'd been passing. His knee clipped the dumpster on the way in, a flash of hot pain, and it was only his backpack that saved his head from smacking dirty concrete when he landed, the breath knocked out of him. The sound of approaching footsteps made him struggle to sit up, fighting disorientation and the knowledge that he probably couldn't run with his knee throbbing like it was.

Adrenaline gave him strength enough to scramble to his feet, even if he had to lean against the grimy brick to stay up when his knee buckled under his weight. He needed to get away, _now_. Whatever force had tossed him didn't feel like any magic he'd encountered before, sticky and slick like oil and tar; black.

"Well this is a surprise! I didn't think there were any of you little pests left on this side of the world." The putrid smell of stale urine and moldering refuse permeated the alley, blocked the man's scent even with the weak breeze of city traffic at his back. The orange glare of sunset kept Harry from seeing more than a silhouette. "And I get you aaa~ll to myself, too. We're gonna be good friends, and you're gonna tell me how you're hiding so well, 'kay?"

Just as Harry was launching himself sideways, prepared to dodge and shoulder-check the man on the way past, a hand like iron shot out and wrapped around his throat; this time there was nothing to save his head from the hard surface behind him, his vision briefly dissolving into white sparks when he hit. The new burst of pain didn't matter so much when that single hand lifted him from the ground, brutal strength pinning him to unforgiving bricks, the rough scrape through his shirt and his feet in open air. Even that momentarily ceased to matter. Harry's hands scrabbled uselessly at the arm, nails drawing blood at the wrist, eyes watering and mouth gasping, but trying to make sense of—

His _face_.

Like a distorted mask; the skin on the outside normal, male, maybe even handsome, but under that…

Void dark eyes and skin charred black, cracked, raw red and putrid yellow ooze, forked tongue and sharp teeth and a twisted _wrongness_ —up close, it almost drowned out the foul reek of the alley with one like struck matches.

Harry lashed out, arching his back and bracing his feet on the inhuman creature's legs long enough to leverage himself up and gasp in a breath, eke out a hoarse "What the hell," before it leaned more pressure on his throat and made him choke. It laughed at him, gleeful and malicious, and for the first time since the War ended, Harry felt genuine fear. This thing was going to kill him—or worse.

"Yeah, that's it exactly, pretty boy." It peered at him, face far too close to his own, and Harry couldn't help kicking again, even if the strain on his neck was agony now. "You can see me, can't you?" It sounded _delighted_. "Oh, I wanted you for myself, but this is so much better!" It pressed up close to him, and Harry would've recoiled if he could've; he could only twitch weakly as sulfur-heavy breath wafted over his face. "I think Lilith will reward me most generously for such an exotic pet, don't you?"

Realization struck like lightning. Lilith. He knew that name—the angels spoke it often. The one who was breaking the Seals. Lucifer's first. A demon.

This thing was a demon. It wanted to take him to Lilith.

It happened in flashes, snapshot pictures.

The demon drawing its free hand back—a fist speeding towards his face.

A flare behind his eyes that didn't feel like magic.

The demon flying back, hitting the opposite wall with a sickening crack as Harry stumbled, almost fell, hands grasping his brutalized throat, panting.

The demon pulling itself up, head bleeding and murderous threat written into every line of its twisted face—it flying away from him again at its first motion forward. A roar of fury.

Risk be damned—Harry Apparated before it could come at him again. Grateful beyond words that he arrived in one piece in his original hotel room –over an hour's travel away– even if he had to fight his leg to sneak away when he realized the sound of his appearance was less akin to a backfiring car than a thunderbolt.

For the first time since it reappeared, Harry wished his Invisibility Cloak actually _made him invisible_. It didn't though, even when it was more imperative than ever to go unseen. Demons would be after him now, and Harry still needed to find the Winchesters.

With a stubborn set to his shoulders, Harry limped into the darkness, paranoid and watchful. He had work to do, and fewer doubts than ever.

/-/

Harry woke just before first light the next morning, wrinkling his nose where it was pressed into a scratchy comforter that smelled like too many ruts and not enough washes. Sleep had been elusive and unsatisfying, his dreams full of formless feelings of helplessness and a sadness so profound his chest still ached with it.

He staggered to the bathroom in his boxers and yesterday's shirt, relieved himself, and checked his injuries more thoroughly than the night before when he rented the seedy little room. His knee was swollen, black and purple and scabbed at one side; it was hot to the touch when he applied some neosporin, but he still thanked the gods it wasn't worse. The ring of black bruises around his throat would be nearly impossible to hide, even if he folded up the collar of his coat. They were damning bruises, too; there was no mistaking the shape of fingers on his neck, or the redness of his eyes from popped blood vessels. His hands were scraped and there was a lump on the back of his head.

One day in the United States and he was worse off that he'd been in years.

Harry sighed, scrubbed out the grimy bathroom sink, and got to work.

He dressed and dug out the herbs while the sink filled, mind turning over the intent of the spell as he did. This was why he was good at pagan magic; there were guidelines, but a lot of the good stuff was pure intuition and determination.

The water was rust flecked in the sink; Harry stuck his hand in and swished it around for a few minutes, frowning in concentration until it purified. He dried his hand on his jeans and pinched the herbs into a cupped palm –two of damiana, one of mugwort, and one of ginko–, mixed them together and then blew softly into his hands until they smoldered. The ashes went into the sink, spreading over the water undisturbed until Harry pricked a finger and bled a single drop of blood into the water; then, all the ash seemed to evaporate, leaving the water an improbably mint-green. Almost done, Harry dipped the bloodied digit into the potion and stated, hoarse through his damaged throat: "Dean Winchester and Samuel Winchester."

There was no outward sign of success as Harry painted two quick lines of the spell across his face, one down from forehead to chin, the other temple to temple over closed eyelids. It was only when he dipped down to swallow a sip of the bitter, scorched water that he felt success—a faint yet sharp tug behind his forehead, urging him _that way_.

Harry floated in a daze for a few moments, acclimating to the sensation, the intuition of _West_ and _very long distance_. It was so distracting that it wasn't until he'd bottled up a few drams and let the rest go down the drain that he noticed the _other_ sensation. A low level thrum of heat and frustration that was infrequent but familiar: It could've been anxiety, or it could've been rut. Of course.

There wasn't any help for it.

Before he left to buy himself a cross-country bus ticket, Harry made sure he had 'A Journeyman's Guide to Magic in North America' tucked into the front pocket of his bag. It was going to be a _long_ trip, and it was now painfully obvious that he would need a way to protect himself, strange accidental magic notwithstanding. He needed to know which wand-spells were likely to blow up in his face before the demons found him again, and Harry was under no illusion that they wouldn't be looking.

Grimly, he thought about Snatchers, and figured it was just about right. This _was_ a war, after all.

/-/-/


End file.
